Excerpts from
Territorial Song
By Pia Tafdrup
Infection
You stiffen, poisoned by sudden dread
while the day founders and changes color
and the blood behind a steadily rising pulse
spreads pain into the finest vessels
where it flutters around like ash
that a wingbeat lifts above the embers
until the heart - that coral tree
acutely blossoming - stands still in a cramp,
on the point of drowning in its own blood
For who can go on his way immune
in a city where people live seperated
like shards of the same dream
The darkness piercing a stranger
- will the hatred invade you?
like shrapnel that gnaws into your flesh
far, far from that morning when, new-born,
you were blessed by the first light.
Translated by Roger Greenwald
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